Presto Pasta Night: A light pasta with crab

My misguided effort to cook everything (EVERYTHING!) from Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to eat’ continues. OK sure, I’ve loved this cookbook for ages, but trying every single recipe from one cookbook- however beloved- is slightly….errrrmmmm, obsessional, for lack of a kinder word, don’t you think?

Whatever. It is what it is, and for now I’m continuing my quest! This is also my entry for the long-running ‘Presto pasta night’, at Once upon a feast. I think this recipe is suitable for the event: I mean, it’s pasta. And it’s presto! (you can make it in half an hour or so). Presto Pasta Night is a lovely, long-running event which includes- in the archives of all the roundups- countless easy, quick, delicious pasta recipes. It’s worth taking a look at Ruth’s blog & checking out the roundups…

This is a light, quite tasty, easy to make dish that Nigella includes in her ‘low fat’ section. So it’s good if you’re trying to shift those stubborn 10 pounds, but don’t want to give up pasta altogether. To be honest though, I have to say I was underwhelmed by it: I expected it to be better. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I used only white crab meat (couldn’t find brown). In any case, it’s an easy everyday supper that you don’t have to think twice about making- and as long as you can get hold of some good crab meat, you may well have better luck than me.

Fine pasta with crab (serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 1 clove garlic, chopped finely (or minced)
• 1/2 red chilli, sliced finely, with seeds (I’m not a fan of very hot tastes, so I used chilli oil instead, which worked very well)
• fresh coriander (1/2 supermarket plastic envelope or 1/4 bunch from market)
• grated zest of 1 lime
• 2-3 spring onions, sliced finely
• 2 teaspoons olive oil (I used chilli oil instead)
• 35 gr. brown crab meat
• 150 ml white wine
• 150 gr. linguine or egg tagliolini (I used egg taglierini! Is it the same thing s tagliolini, I wonder?!)
• 60 gr. white crab meat
• squirt of lime juice
• fresh flat-leaf parsley

Method:

• Put water on for the pasta
• When it’s almost boiling, start on the sauce (I would suggest that by this point you should have already done all the necessary chopping & preparing, so put on the water to boil AFTER you’ve done all that prep work)
• Sweat the garlic, chilli (if using), half the coriander, half the lime zest & the spring onions in olive oil (or chilli oil) until softened
• Add the brown crab meat & white wine & simmer for about 10′, stirring occasionally, until it reduces & thickens
• Add salt to the boiling pasta water & put in the pasta
• Just before the pasta needs draining, stir in the white meat, remaining coriander & remaining lime zest into the sauce
• add a drop or two of lime juice
• Before draining the pasta, keep a mug of cooking water
• Add the cooking water to the sauce & transfer the pasta & sauce to a boal
• make sure the sauce coats the strands of pasta
• add some flat-leaf parsley, just chopped
• My addition: add, if you want, a bit more freshly squeezed lime juice. I thought it suited the pasta sauce very much, gave a nice freshness to it.
• Eat immediately!

If you’re interested in trying out other recipes for pasta with crab, here’s a couple of recipes I found:

Linguine with crab and artichokes, from Tara at Seven Spoons

Tagliolini with crab and lemon, from the London Times

Sicilian style crab pasta, from the BBC Food website

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